Notes from the Resistance: A Column on Language and Power

A very interesting article about Trump, truth and idiocy gone amuck. What happens when the truth, as a construct, as a parameter and as a way of life gets basically thrown out with the waste water? Well, for one thing, people like Trump get taken seriously. Their lies and coverups are never questioned, fake news replaces proper reportage, and all of our constructs, everything that our society is based upon explodes.

Tell me, dear reader, if any of this sounds familiar, this is, of course, a quote from the original;

“We already know that in America you can be arrested for suspected petty theft and wind up imprisoned, untried, for years. We already know that in America you can be pulled over for a burned out taillight and wind up dead at the hands of police. In America you can be raped and the odds are overwhelmingly high that your rapist will walk free. These things shouldn’t happen, and yet they do. These things don’t affect you personally, until they do. You might think that these things happen because you are the wrong color, or the wrong gender, or the wrong religion. But right now in America the boundaries of right and wrong are shifting dangerously.”

What are the truths? What are the lies? More importantly, how can we know the difference?